A small commercial diving company in Hammonds Plains, N.S., has been charged with four offences under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act following the death of an employee two years ago today.

Luke Seabrook died on July 15, 2015 after getting stuck underwater in a sluice gate at the Nova Scotia Power tidal plant in Annapolis Royal.

The 39-year-old commercial diver from Dartmouth was working for a company hired by the utility to inspect the gates controlling the flow of the powerful tides of the Annapolis River.

4 charges

According to court documents, Paul’s Diving Services Inc. is alleged to have:

failed to provide information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to address water flow hazards at the tidal generating station;

failed to take precautions “to ensure that employees, and particularly the supervisors and foremen were made familiar with… hazardous water pressure differential that may exist at the sluice gates”;

failed to ensure a written dive plan was in place that met the requirements of the province’s Occupational Diving Regulations;

failed to ensure that a dive was not conducted in hazardous water-flow conditions.

The charges have not been proven in court. A representative of the company is due in Digby provincial court on July 24 to enter a plea.

An official from the company declined to comment on the matter, when reached by phone Saturday.

If convicted, penalties could include a fine as high as $500,000, up to two years in jail, or both a fine and a jail term.

Charging ‘the little guy’

In a letter emailed in May to provincial officials, including Premier Stephen McNeil, the family urged the province to consider laying charges against Nova Scotia Power.

A wreath at the Nova Scotia Power Annapolis Tidal Station where Luke Seabrook died. (Dave Laughlin/CBC)

Seabrook’s mother Angela Seabrook said she feared labour officials might be “apprehensive about laying charges further up the line” and that the Occupational Health and Safety Branch had not fulfilled its mandate for workplace safety “based on the…